Daily Archives: April 17, 2013

NewsFeed highlights some of the people who sprang into action to help those in need when two bombings near the Boston Marathon finish line Apr. 15 killed three and injured more than 170.

Carlos Arredondo: The cowboy-hat-wearing Costa Rican immigrant and peace activist was handing out American flags to the runners when the first bomb exploded – a tribute to his son Alexander, a Marine who died in Iraq in 2004, NBC News reported. Arredondo told the New York Times that after the blast he jumped over a fence and ran towards the people lying on the ground — where he found spectator Jeff Bauman with his shirt on fire and the lower parts of his legs gone. Arredondo beat the flames out with his hands, tied a t-shirt around the stump of one of Bauman’s legs, and kept him company until emergency responders arrived.

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Are you getting a $40,000 tax refund and looking for a place to blow it? Try the White Barn Inn in Kennebunk, Me.

To celebrate its 40th anniversary, the bar at the White Barn Inn has concocted a cocktail called the Ruby Rose — made from Hangar One Vodka, St. Germain’s elderflower liqueur, fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice, a spoonful of rosewater and one special secret ingredient — a 4-carat ruby. The price is a happy hour-friendly $40,000. But you do get to keep the ruby.

The idea came about when the staff were thinking of a way to mark the occasion of the luxury inn and restaurant’s anniversary. “Rubies were always considered a very precious gem,” maitre d’hotel Matthew Swinford said to the Portland Press Herald, “and [owner Laurence J. Bongiorno] would always refer to the White Barn Inn as…

BOSTON (AP) — Federal agents zeroed in Tuesday on how the Boston Marathon bombing was carried out — with kitchen pressure cookers packed with explosives, nails and other lethal shrapnel — but said they still didn’t know who did it and why.

An intelligence bulletin issued to law enforcement and released late Tuesday included a picture of a mangled pressure cooker and a torn black bag the FBI said were part of a bomb.

The FBI and other law enforcement agencies repeatedly pleaded for members of the public to come forward with photos, videos or anything suspicious they might have seen or heard.

“The range of suspects and motives remains wide open,” Richard DesLauriers, FBI agent in charge in Boston, said at a news conference. He vowed to “go to the ends of the Earth to identify the subject or subjects who are responsible for this despicable crime.”

President Barack Obama branded the attack an act of terrorism but said officials don’t know “whether it was planned and executed by a terrorist organization, foreign or domestic, or was the act of a malevolent individual.”

Scores of victims remained in hospitals, many with grievous injuries, a day after the twin explosions near the marathon’s finish line killed three people, wounded more than 170 and reawakened fears of terrorism. A 9-year-old girl and 10-year-old boy were among 17 victims listed in critical condition.

(Photo of the Garvey Park vigil in Dorchester, Mass. taken by MSNBC’s Evan Puschak)

“I can’t believe it happened,” said a classmate of Martin’s. “It’s really sad.”

Her mother told O’Donnell how the parents in the community were feeling. “We were up to almost midnight last night talking to other parents just because it is just such a close neighborhood, you know. And they’re such a wonderful family. I mean, so… it’s terrible.”

Krystal Campbell, a 29-year-old fitness coach and restaurant manager, was identified as the second victim on Tuesday.

Video: TODAY’s Savannah Guthrie sits down with President Obama to talk about some of the major stories making headlines recently, including whether Congress will pass new gun legislation, our tense relations with North Korea, and compromising with Republicans over the budget.

“Based on our current intelligence assessments we do not think that they have that capacity,” Obama told Savannah Guthrie. However, North Korea’s history of consistently erratic behavior has forced the Pentagon to take all necessary precautions.

“We have to make sure that we are dealing with every contingency out there. And that’s why I’ve repositioned missile defense systems to guard against any miscalculation on their part,” he said in a wide-ranging interview. The first part of the discussion aired Tuesday.

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When is a vehicle’s top speed not really its top speed? When a records-keeping outfit decides it didn’t happen… even if it did.

Case in point, Guinness World Records recently declared a record top speed set by the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Super Sport — 267.8 m.p.h. — invalid after it learned the car’s speed limiter had been deactivated. A speed limited does just what it sounds like: it’s a device that prevents a vehicle from exceeding a given velocity. Many commercial vehicles employ them for safety reasons, to prevent drivers from exceeding speed thresholds (though driving 155 m.p.h. — the limit imposed in vehicles from manufacturers like Audi, BMW, Audi, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen — hardly seems prudent).

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Both John McCain and Mitt Romney are saying that they are considering being a candidate for president in 2016. Let both of them run and let the delegates at the convention decide who gets the top spot on the ticket if the loser agrees to accept second place on the ticket. Then they could use the Clinton argument of 1992 that the voters will be getting two for the price of one. Then it was Bill and Hillary; now it would be John and Mitt or Mitt and John.